Analyse and compare/contrast 3 double page articles of 3 music magazines at least one of which should be of the same genre as your own magazine

I will be comparing and contrasting three different magazine front covers. I will demonstrate how the media uses font, text size, language and colour. The first magazine front cover I have been allocated to analyse is called ‘Vibe’. The masthead is placed at the top of the magazine cover in large font and coloured in yellow. Its yellow font helps it stand out against the blue background of the text. The image takes most of the space of the front cover, with the cover lines on the sides. The image even overlaps over the masthead, but it is still recognisable, and still will be noticeable from a distance.

Different types of font have been used to create affect and make the important texts stand out. Colours such as white, yellow, green, red and blue are used, which suggest that the magazine is targeted at an older audience.

Ciara is featured on the front cover of the magazine. She is a well-known singer, which may attract and influence people to buy the magazine. This magazine targets new readers as well as usual readers.  The image is in direct mode of address, where the person in the image is looking straight at the reader. The direct gaze helps simulate interaction with each individual reader. The image of Ciara is a medium shot, and takes most of the space on the front cover but there is space for text as she is standing side wards.

The language used is not formal as the text ‘Hot like Me’ questions the audience in an un-formal way.

In my opinion, I think the front cover is effective, making it look like a classy -fashion magazine, targeting a teenager, older female audience.

The second magazine I will be analysing is called ‘XXL’. In XXL editions of magazines they will always use the large, bold and thick title. This is also used in other music magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘VIBE’ which clearly demonstrates that a large title must be more appealing to the audience. The masthead, XXL, also denotes the meaning extra, extra large, and emphasizes how the magazine is ‘massive’ as are the rappers featured in it. The text is on a large red box which helps contrast the colours and show the magazines brand and image more clearly, the colour connotations of the red box also represent power and the energy the magazine shows.

A feature added above the masthead is ‘Hip Hop On A Higher Level’, which is the magazines slogan to attract the readers to the magazine, it also imposes the image they are trying to create about how there magazine is better than its rival competitors in the same magazine genre, making it seem that they are providing more and of better quality. 

XXL will also have one or more famous artists on the front of their cover such as above the magazine features famous singers named ‘Nicki Minarj’ and ‘Drake’ from the same band named young money entertainment. XXL generally use hop-hop, and rap. This immediately shows to the reader what type of magazine it is just from its front cover, making it very clear from the front that the magazine is based on music, specifically in the Hip-Hop, and rap area. XXL always make the font image very large to make it clear to the reader what the magazine will specify in for its best and main story. 

The image used of Drake and Nicki is a medium shot were the image is directly looking at the audience.

The language of this magazine is all indirect language as it doesn’t directly speak to the audience. 

This type of magazine is not aimed at an older audience, and I feel this magazine would be aimed at the 16-27 age groups. My reason for this is because the artists usually represented on the front cover are usually more recent era, which instantly shows us that the magazine is formed around that genre of music and everybody knows what genre of music these artists perform.

With the audience I also feel that this edition is portrayed towards a male and female market as we can see this from the intimidating postures that are represented here. In my opinion the magazine looks unique and sensual.

The third magazine I will be analysing is also called ‘Gossip’.  Colours such as red, white, yellow and black have been used to create contrast between the colours and make the magazine front cover look catchy. Different sizes of font also have been applied to emphasise the important words in bigger font and the least important in small font, using different sizes of font also makes the magazine front cover look attractive.  Some fonts are either on a strip with a background colour and some are either placed on the side without a strip with a background colour.

The medium shot image takes up most of the space on the magazine front cover of three punks.  Small stamp sized images have also been used to refer to the quotes.

The language which has been used on the front cover of the ‘NME’ magazine is simple and uses text which is straight to the point. The language is not questioning the audience, but the language informs you of what’s happening or has been happening.  

In my opinion I believe the magazine is overcrowded although it is attractive and straight to the point.

Each magazine uses different fonts, colours, and language and image style to create a unique magazine front cover. However all three music magazine mastheads such as ‘Vibe’, ‘XXL’ and ‘NME’ have been placed behind the images to create a professional magazine feeling towards the audience.  This style has been used in nearly every music magazine front cover.